As bushfires burn across NSW, firefighters from across Australia are descending on the state to assist in the battle against several large bushfires threatening lives and property. But is our dependence on increasingly efficient emergency services hurting us in the long run?
Emergency fire expert Lewis Winter, of Charles Sturt University, has proposed that citizens adopt a dramatically different mentality: you're on your own.
What should governments be doing in order to safeguard against huge losses in the event of natural disasters?
Governments really have to re-route resources from response to getting our community back on line with understanding what’s needed for their own safety and survival. For many years we’ve poured untold millions into response - as we need to. I come from a response background, it’s very important. Our emergency management services are improving, they’re doing very well, but we’ve left the community behind. It’s now time to engage them in the proper manner, and to do that it’s going to take some resources. But in the long run, it’s going to be a cost saving. Our emergency services respond in a wonderfully timely manner. And it’s because of those improvements, through our continued training and better equipment, that we can do that. But now what we need to do is spend resources on a better way to train our community.
How do you propose emergency services better engage with the community?
Unfortunately, emergency services, being as good as what they are, have unwittingly trained our communities that if there’s any problem they just have to dial 000 and they will turn up at the door. In disaster situations, that is not going to be the case. We will never have the resources to furnish hundreds, if not thousands, of calls. It will never happen. So we’ve got to be honest and tell people “You are on your own”.
In the past what we've done is to run out pamphlets and fridge magnets and use this sort of medium. But we really have to change the way we engage because we’re not just talking about awareness here. It’s not awareness, it’s a call to action for the communities to do something for themselves. It’s about a cultural change. We have to change our behaviour and culture back to where we originated from in this nation. We originated as a very resilient peoples, but unfortunately, now we live in cities, 80 per cent of us live in an urban environment, we’re busy people, we pay our taxes, and government emergency services tell us they’re going to come and fix our problems, so we believe that.
We have transferred the responsibility for the risks and threats we face to other people. Now it’s time to re-engage with the community and say “You have to do something for yourself, because you’re on your own." It’s about honesty. We’ve got to become honest with people and say "We may not be there when you need it." That’s the cultural change we need.
How do you think communities will react to the statement “You’re on your own”?
I have heard mixed feelings about this. Some people say things like "What are you doing frightening us?", and "It's scaremongering tactics", and call people in emergency management the Grim Reaper and doomsayers. But really, it is so easy to get yourself emergency ready. Think of it this way: there’s a large scale emergency, and there’s people within our community that really do desperately need help. They’re vulnerable people. They have physical, maybe mental challenges, and we really need to help these people out.
But for the bulk of our community, we can do things for ourselves. We just have to take simple steps to do that. It’s an unpopular thing to say you’re on your own, you’re going to have to help yourself, and this is why our politicians and senior leaders don’t really say it. But other countries are saying it. The United States is saying it, New Zealand is saying it, Canada is saying it: people, you have got to be ready to look after yourselves. And it’s time Australia started saying it.
What can individuals do to ensure they’re as protected as possible?
I want to stress that it is easy to be ready. It honestly is. There are only three principles that we discuss with people about how they can be emergency ready: Head, Hand and Home. In the head, it’s a simple plan. That simple plan talks about things like do you know the area and the risks you face in the area you live in? If so, what evacuation routes are you going to use? Have you got a list of phone numbers of friends and relatives? How are you going to get in contact with one another if you’re separated in an emergency? What is the national broadcast station where you can listen to news about the event and find out what’s going on?
The second one is hand. When somebody comes and bangs on your door at two o’clock in the morning and says “Quick, you’ve got to evacuate now,” what are you going to grab? What’s the first thing you’re going to pick up and run with as you go out the door? If you’ve got a ready kit, you put your backpack on and you’re ready to go. You’ve got everything you need for survival for 72 hours. There’s identity documents in there, communications, warmth, you’ve got food and water.
The last thing is home, and that’s just looking at the area in which your house is situated, perhaps lessening the threats to your home or doing things around your home that may lessen the threat. Have you got insurances on your home? Studies indicate that most Australians are under-insured. If you look around the home you might be able to store some extra things. If you’re housebound, you could store extra equipment or needed items in your house that you don’t have to throw on your back.
There’s only three things you need to do and they’re very easy. You’ll find with the ready kit most items are available in the house. But you’ve got to have it prepared and ready to go at a moment’s notice.
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